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There might be a difference between medicine as written and medicine as practiced. Suppose a psychiatrist talks to a patient and confirms they have every sympt
by anotherman554 4y ago
There might be a difference between medicine as written and medicine as practiced. Suppose a psychiatrist talks to a patient and confirms they have every symptom. Clearly a textbook case, except the patient says "I was symptom free in childhood."
Does the psychiatrist conclude the patient doesn't meet the criteria, or does the psychiatrist conclude the patient wasn't self aware enough in childhood to know if they exhibited symptoms so a diagnosis is warranted?
- faeriechangling 4y agoWell no, the psychiatrist has options here, they could try to interview the parents or the teacher of the child and ask them what they remember. It's always helpful if a psychiatrist goes through the trouble of making a stronger case than "They must just not remember how autistic they were as a kid, so therefore, they had autism symptoms as a child". They're making a diagnosis with legal weight, a diagnosis that entitles you to various forms of government assistance.
- anotherman554 4y agoPerhaps I misunderstood what you were talking about above. I thought you were talking about a diagnosis for treatment purposes, if you were talking about a formal diagnosis for government assistance, that's a different conversation. A diagnosis for treatment purposes does not entitle you to government assistance. People are only entitled to government assistance if they meet a "legal" standard about the severity of the illness.